Baltimore approves $200K for lawyers to help immigrants

BALTIMORE — The Baltimore spending panel has approved spending $200,000 to pay for attorneys that will represent immigrants facing deportation.

Mayor Catherine Pugh tells The Baltimore Sun that the move is meant to show the city supports its residents. The mayor compares public defenders provided to people who cannot afford attorneys in criminal cases to the new representation, funded in part by city taxpayers and in part by New York nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice.

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young says the funding could reduce government costs by keeping families together, preventing abandoned children from entering state care.

The funding approved Wednesday is expected to help 40 immigrants with lawyers provided by the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition.

Battles over priorities in a huge government-wide spending bill are essentially settled, leaving a scaled-back plan for President Donald Trump's border wall and a huge rail project that pits Trump against Capitol Hill's most powerful Democrat as the top issues to be solved.